Lucky dip part two - fettuccine marinara - simple but so much argument
"Marinara as far as I have ever known has seafood in it.
And if I think that I'm betting the general population thinks that, so that makes it true." Whirlpool Discussion Forum
The basis of my blog today is Elizabeth David's recipe for Fettucine alla marinara and my own snobby foodie mindset that said that marinara is not a seafood sauce, but a basic tomato sauce. Now that I have done my usual minimal research I am not so sure, and almost inclined to agree with the outlandishly populist statement above. After all I often argue about language changing from the bottom up not the top down when somebody moans about the so-called appalling state of the English language today. So surely the same principal should apply to food. If the world - and in this case that basically means America principally, but us and the English and probably the rest of the English speaking world - thinks pasta or pizza marinara means seafood then perhaps it does.
I even saw one statement that the Italians in Italy had no such dish. There is no pasta or pizza marinara. Obviously I cannot comment on this though Mario Batali (a well-known Italian chef) seems to think there is. But I have to say that my two Italian 'bibles' The Silver Spoon and Italy the Beautiful (by Lorenza di Medici) do not mention the dish. They don't even have a marinara sauce. For one argument is that marinara is the name of a sauce not a dish. The sauce being a very, very simple tomato sauce. And there are arguments about that too - which I shall come to shortly.
The reasoning for pasta marinara being a tomato sauce based pasta comes from two different sources. Made by sailors on their boats - it's so simple they can do it. Or made by their wives when they saw the boats coming into harbour. Very quick to whip it up from ingredients that are always to hand. Well since the Americas were discovered anyway. This bases the argument on the word 'marinaro' meaning sailor. The seafood people base it on 'mare' meaning sea.
But for the moment let's stick to the tomato sauce version. Why is it not called pomodoro one asks, or Napoli (it sometimes is), as Naples is most usually credited with being the place of origin? Well Naples is most often associated with tomatoes foodwise (actually they mostly come from Perugia we discovered). And it is a port. So why not Napoli?
Elizabeth David who likes to pride herself on being properly authentic, and who very probably researched her subject very thoroughly doesn't actually say very much about its origins. It's a very, very simple recipe though. And like yesterday's worth reproducing in full, if only for the slightly period feel about it.
"Fettucine are home-made ribbon noodles. The ready-made kind will, however, do just as well for this dish, which is Neapolitan. Cook them as usual; 5 minutes before they are ready make the sauce. Into a frying pan put a good covering of olive oil; into this when it is hot but not smoking, throw at least 3 cloves of sliced garlic; let them cook half a minute. Add 6 or 7 ripe tomatoes, each cut in about 6 pieces; they are to cook for about 3 minutes only, the point of the sauce being that the tomatoes retain their natural flavour and are scarcely cooked, while the juice that comes out of them (they must, of course, be ripe tomatoes) amalgamates with the oil and will moisten the pasta. At the last moment stir in several leaves of fresh basil, simply torn into 2 or 3 pieces each. and season the sauce with salt and pepper. Pour the sauce on top of the fettuccine in the serving dish, and serve the grated cheese separately. Since basil is not common in England, mint makes a pleasant substitute; or parsley, but this will not, of course, be so aromatic."
The point is that it is dead simple. You don't even peel the tomatoes and there are just four ingredients - oil, tomatoes, garlic and basil. And nowadays basil is very easily come by all year. They grow it in greenhouses.
Yotam Ottolenghi has a very similar but updated version the only addition being some chilli, although he does say that this is optional. He calls his dish Spaghetti with cherry tomato sauce. I don't think cherry tomatoes were heard of when Elizabeth David was writing.
Non purists will add other things. Anchovies were very vocally supported as authentic in a couple of versions that I saw, but as somebody else pointed out this then more or less becomes puttanesca sauce not a tomato sauce - whatever you want to call the tomato sauce - pomodoro, napoli, sugo ... Onions, of course, were another popular addition but according to the purists, not an option.
So it seems one can't even agree on what is marinara sauce. As for the other linguistic argument - marinara is a sauce so fettuccine alla marinara is fettuccine in a marinara sauce, not seafood in a marinara sauce. I guess, strictly speaking that should be something like pasta con fruitti di mare alla marinara. So does popular usage - pasta marinara is pasta with seafood - win the day, or do we stick with the 16th century mariners? Just make sure you know what you are ordering when you see it on a menu somewhere.
